


Kasen's Magic Trick

by communistkasen (bagoum)



Category: Touhou Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29667504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagoum/pseuds/communistkasen
Summary: I read Umineko a few weeks ago
Relationships: Ibaraki Kasen/Yakumo Yukari
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Kasen's Magic Trick

Though the shrine's overhang protected my face from the overpowering sun, I could still feel its warmth indirectly in the wooden planks pressing up against my shoulderblades, and directly upon my shins that, in the course of the past hour of the sun's movement through the sky, had passed from within the shade to outside of it. "You know, if you think of it from the perspective that _the sun's cast shadows are moving around me_ , then doesn't that mean I, me, here, am the center of the universe?" --My thoughts accidentally leaked into my speech, but I had no reason to restrain them or withdraw them.

Kasen, who was sitting full-lotus by my side-- full-lotus, really? She could be a bit more relaxed-- responded with an equally sophistic response. "If you are standing halfway between the human village and this shrine, and lightning strikes them both at the same time, you will see those flashes simultaneously. But if you are halfway between the two _while running towards the human village_ , then you will see the human village struck first. Perspective is more important than you think, Reimu."

"Okay, I understand that my idea was bad, but you don't have to parody me like that."

She laughed, amused by my annoyed voice. "Your idea _was_ bad, but I'm not parodying you. What I said was the truth. There is nothing that is not built on the ground that is perspective. And I have given you such a simple example. Would you like to hear instead about the choice-eraser problem, where you can change the past by looking at it?"

Unconvinced, I shrugged, though after raising my shoulders I had to lift my back to drop them again without driving them into the planks. "Rather than that, why don't you show me your powers of perspective, if your understanding of it is so thorough?"

"Powers of perspective? Hmm..." She stood up and stepped out into the sun, and the moment her body exited the shade a light gust blew, tugging softly at the hem of her skirt and clearing some stray strands of hair from her face. "I guess... I can use my powers of perspective to disappear."

"...Disappear?" 

"Yes." She turned back to me and puffed up her cheeks, though a small sleight-of-hand trick like this ought not to deserve that much pride. "Blink, and I'll disappear from right in front of you. It's a classic skill I honed when I was young. It's a simple matter of forcibly changing someone else's perspective. Yukari _teleports_ , but I _disappear_. And if we had someone else here, I could even erase my presence from only one person's eyes."

She can disappear in the span of a blink...? Wait, no, _that's_ impossible. I need to get to the bottom of this... as a youkai exterminator. This is for my job. I'm not slacking off. So I sat up and looked at her more closely.

But how am I supposed to watch her while I'm blinking? It's easy to fake keeping your eyes closed, but faking _blinking_ is really quite difficult. Hmm... Ah! I've got it! Aya has been hiding in the bushes off to the side for a while, probably trying to find a good time to make an entrance or something. She's a news junkie, so if she hears of this, there's no way she'll miss the opportunity to reveal Kasen's disappearing secret!

I clamped down on my hair, as if to prevent it from blowing away, and spoke up in a louder voice. "Sorry, I didn't catch that, the wind is pretty loud. How long do I have to close my eyes for?"

The wind was eerily silent as Kasen responded, equally loudly, wearing a cruel smile I expected more from Yukari than from someone pure like her. "The next time you blink, I will disappear." It was strangely... strange. Isn't her character supposed to be, like, a "mentir" or something? I read that in a book I borrowed from Kosuzu, that all books actually have the same characters, and one of the characters is the mentir, who is really smart and good and teaches the hero (obviously me) important life lessons. So why is she smiling like a villain...?

No, that's not important. I have to solve this incident first! Aya must be pulling out her camera about now. I'll give her a signal so she knows to pay attention. "Okay, then, to be fair, I'll do a countdown. Three... two... one..." I could still hear her shuffling around in the bushes. I need to buy her more time. "One half... One quarter... uh, one third..."

"A third is more than a quarter, Reimu."

"What are you talking about? Three is less than four."

"Would you rather share a cake among three people or four people?"

"Three, obviously. More cake is better."

"And thus, one third of the cake is more than one fourth of the cake."

"That's definitely not how it works, Kasen. Three is less than four. That's why nobody eats third-pound burgers."

She sighed, though I couldn't tell what kind of sigh it was. "If you say so. And? Aren't your eyes getting dry? Hurry up and blink."

So I blinked, and as soon as the light disappeared from my sight I heard a piercing scream. My eyes shot open, and I swung my head towards where the sound had originated-- then swung it back to check that Kasen had in fact disappeared from before my eyes-- it was the bushes where Aya was hiding! After I confirmed that Kasen was nowhere in sight, I stood up and sprinted over to the bushes, where I found Aya laying on the ground, shivering, with terror in her eyes and her camera lying lens-side down a meter away, muttering helplessly, "I didn't see anything... I didn't see anything..."

Struck by a sudden pang of fear, I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "Aya! Aya! What happened?!"

Her dilated eyes could only vaguely point in my direction as she mumbled through pained gasps, "I didn't see anything...! Nothing... nothing happened..."

"Aya! Aya! Hold it together, Aya!" I shook her even more roughly, and though her gaze now matched mine, she was not looking at me. What happened? What could possibly have happened in the span of that blink?

I could feel beads of sweat running down my face-- it is pretty warm outside today, after all-- and my breath growing more ragged-- certainly because the humid air was more difficult to breathe. For a few moments I was kneeling there, uncertain what to do, when Kasen stepped out from behind a tree, vaguely smiling.

"What happened? Nothing happened, of course. I disappeared, and here I have reappeared."

I looked up at her, not sure enough of reality to be angry. "No, no, that doesn't make any sense. How could you just disappear and make Aya like this at the same time? It's not possible. It can't be possible. It's impossible..."

"Reimu, you really are stupid." From behind me I heard Yukari's condescending voice, though I hadn't heard her footsteps. Not that I should expect to.

I swung my head around to face her face, which, for some inscrutable reason, was twisted with disappointment. "Hey! That's unwarranted!"

"You already know I can make things appear and disappear within the span of a blink. Shouldn't you just assume that I was helping Kasen pull a prank on you? You can't be a youkai exterminator if you get this spooked by my little games."

Shit, she's right! All of this was trivially possible with Yukari's power... why did I get so worked up in the first place...? Damn... but I can't admit I was wrong after she called me stupid! "W-well, there's, uh... no motive! You can't have a mystery without a whydunit! That's why you couldn't have been the culprit!"

"This is fantasy, not mystery, Reimu. What kind of mystery has a character who can pass through locked doors?"

"B-but... Kasen... Kasen wouldn't cooperate with you!"

Yukari recoiled slightly, deepening her frown, as if I had somehow insulted her by saying that. She opened her mouth to respond, but Kasen interrupted her. "Because you're a youkai and I'm a _human_ , Yukari. I'm a _human_ , so I wouldn't cooperate with you. It's a valid argument."

Yukari's visage cleared. "Ah, yes, of course. I see. Ahem! You don't have to assume she cooperated with me _willingly_. I threatened her, of course. Just for the sake of pulling a prank on you. Because I, the most powerful being to reside anywhere in the three worlds of heaven, hell, and the ephemeral earth, am just that capricious."

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that." I turned to Kasen. "Did she threaten you?"

Kasen hadn't yet opened her mouth when Yukari responded. "I forced her to sign an NDA."

Kasen bit down on her lip, suppressing a laugh. "Yukari, nobody here knows what an NDA is."

"Shit, again? Uh..." Yukari scratched at her head for a few moments, looking for a definition for her made-up words. "It means I threatened her into saying that I didn't threaten her."

"That's..." Damn, I can't find a hole in her story!... But I can't let her insult stand! I have to get back at her somehow... "Oh yeah? Then what about Aya?"

"Aya is my shikigami. She was in on it too. You've already met Zenki and Gouki, haven't you? I have many more pet crows."

Aya, by now having regained most of her forces, stood up with a slight teeter and spoke forcefully. "I'm not your shikigami or your pet, dumbass."

Yukari laughed, as if pleased by this insult. "That vulgar tongue of yours is exactly why you're my favorite pet, little birdbrain."

"Who are you calling birdbrain when the real bird around here is--"

Suddenly, a gap appeared in front of Aya's face, and a gloved hand, stretching out from it, tightly clamped her cheeks, rendering her unable to move her jaw enough to speak. That glove... is Yukari's. Well, the gap is Yukari's too. I looked to her and saw her smiling cruelly-- it was the same smile I had seen on Kasen's face earlier, but it was a lot less unnerving coming from Yukari. Yukari is the "guardian of the boundary", so she can be a little villainous, according to the book. 

But when she spoke, her voice was more frigid and angered than I had ever heard from her. "Outside it is said that the effects of punishment on behavior tend to be limited to the circumstances which generate it. So no matter how much I punish you for your transgressions, you will not cease to perform them when I am out of your sight. Tell me, Aya, how should I resolve this conundrum? Have I not been thus far gracious enough to let you run around where you wish and run your mouth as you please? I am not kind-hearted enough to on top of this reward you when you do well, so if I want you to follow the but few rules I have lain out for you, do I have no other choice but to put you in a little panopticon where my eyes never leave you?"

"Aag-- n-- hg... oo!" Aya's voice was well audible, but she could not move her jaw enough to form any meaningful sounds. This would have been a lot scarier had Yukari been holding her by the neck, but as is I really couldn't shake the impression that she was pinching a baby's cheeks.

Yukari's frustrated groan screeched against the walls of her throat like nails on a chalkboard, and her smile morphed into a contorted grimace. "Enough. I'll deal with you later." A gap opened up behind Aya, and its formless tentacles squirmed against her body before solidifying into the shape of a giant spider-crab's clawed legs, which embraced and devoured her whole, then collapsed in on themselves, leaving nothing behind. Except for her camera, which is still lying by my feet.

Kasen scratched at one of her buns, with a pained expression on her face. "I told you to be nicer to your students. Punishment isn't sufficient as a means of teaching."

I half expected Kasen to receive the same treatment, but in response to this Yukari only sighed again, with-- regret?-- in her breath. "I try, but... some things... there are some things I can't let go."

"Even for those things."

"How do you do it even for those things, Kasen?"

" _Without love, it cannot be seen_."

"Did you forget again? Teachers aren't supposed to love their students."

"...The point of that statement is to convey that you ought to take things _in good faith_ , Yukari. It doesn't require... that sense of love."

"Yes, yes... I know. My bad."

"So? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to disappear for a while."

"Yukari..."

"It's a teacher's duty to clean up after her student's messes, isn't it?" With one last cruel smile on her face, this time pointed at Kasen, she stepped backwards and, as if she was sinking into a pit of quicksand, first her hair disappeared, then her body, and then even her outstretched hand passed through that invisible curtain, which for only a moment shimmered like the surface of a lake into which a kappa had just dived. 

Kasen sighed with exasperation and turned to me. "Are you alright? You're shivering."

"I-I'm not scared! Why should _I_ be scared of a youkai?! I'm a youkai exterminator! I'll beat Yukari up any day of the week!"

She smiled wryly. "Good. It's probably because she admired that confidence that she had you become the Hakurei shrine maiden."

...I'm pretty sure she just said something really important. "Who's she? You can't possibly mean Yukari?"

"If you find out, you'll have to become an atheist, so out of respect for your religious beliefs, I won't tell you."

"That's impossible. How could anyone be an atheist when there are literal gods wandering around Gensoukyou?"

"Again, if you find out, you'll have to become an atheist, so out of respect for your religious beliefs, I won't tell you. If you really want to know, ask Okina. She's an atheist too."

"She is _literally_ a god! How could she be an atheist?!"

Kasen smiled, much more proudly this time. "If those are all your questions, then, as I have some business to tend to in the village, I'll be excusing myself."

I tossed my head in my hands and groaned. "First she threatens you into this stupid prank, and then she has you say all this stupid stuff about 'atheism'. I can't imagine what goes through Yukari's head. Maybe it's about time I exterminate her again."

She wagged her finger and began speaking in her preachy lecturey tone. "No, no, Yukari was just passing by. She had nothing to do with this. She was just trying to teach you a lesson about inductive reasoning. Rather than be spooked by something you don't understand, just pick a relevant youkai and blame them. If you can't think of anyone, blame Yukari. As long as you can explain others' actions within the rules of Gensoukyou as you understand them, you've won. It doesn't matter whether you're 'right' or 'wrong'. To defend the boundary as the Hakurei shrine maiden, believing in your own strength as a youkai exterminator is all you need to do. You can't exterminate something you fear, so you must fear nothing, even if you ought to fear something."

It was strange to hear such youkai-like words from a human as upright as Kasen. Certainly... "Did she threaten you into saying that too?"

She giggled quietly. "Not at all. But maybe it's better for you to think that she did." Then, unexpectedly, she bowed deeply with one arm hanging out to the side, parallel to the ground, as if she had just presented a magic trick. Surprised, I blinked, and when my eyes opened again she was gone.

I swung around to see where Kasen might have disappeared to, when my foot grazed Aya's camera yet lying on the ground. Aya...? Shit! I forgot to ask her about Aya! Did she say all that obscure stuff about atheism just to distract me from asking about Aya?! Shit! And now if I ask next time I see her, she'll just pretend to not know anything...

Why would Kasen cover for those two when she's a human? Hmm... either I have to conclude that it's possible for humans and youkai to peacefully coexist, _or_ that she's actually an evil youkai...

...

......

.........

I guess I should prepare for an extermination.


End file.
